VOL. 53 ISSUE 30 AUGUST 2, 2016 P37
for us, but we decided to make
a few changes and now we're
winning again and its fun again.
Whenever I pull to the starting
line, my dad pats me on the
back and says something to me.
He always says something differ-
ent and before the final he said,
'Get me the [expletive] money.
If you know him, you know he's
got no filter so that wasn't a sur-
prise but I got the message."
The Sonoma event had the
quickest field of Pro Stock Mo-
torcycles ever assembled with
all 16 bikes qualifiers running
quicker than 6.90-seconds.
Tonglet's 6.780 was not only
the best run of his career, but
also the second-best pass for a
Suzuki. The Nitro Fish team was
able to maintain that consistency
on race day with a pair of 6.79
runs in his wins over Katie Sul-
livan and Lucas Oil Buell's Hec-
tor Arana and two 6.81 passes
to beat the Harley V-Rods of
Krawiec and Hines.
"The last couple of races
we've been struggling with our
clutch," Tonglet said. "My broth-
er and I told our dad, 'If you don't
get this clutch fixed, we're taking
it out of the bike and you're off
clutch duty.' It worked today so
now we can keep it. The big
thing is that we've got some mo-
mentum now and we just need
to keep it going. We had a good
race in Denver a week ago so
now we're looking forward to the
next one in Brainerd."
On Saturday, the NHRA Pro
Bike Battle was held and Screa-
min' Eagle Harley-Davidson's
Andrew Hines won the special
event for the sixth time in his
career. The race, which is an
invitational event open to the
top eight riders in the class
based on qualifying results, pays
$7500 to the winner. Hines won
the final round against teammate
Krawiec, 6.775 to 6.811.
Kevin McKenna
LE Tonglet put his Suzuki in the
winner circle for the first time in
five years when he won the final
against Andrew Hines at Sonoma.
Tonglet celebrates a long-overdue victory.
